The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921Quotes
Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziAll the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BCPower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.
—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792